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June 16, 2000 |
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It was a beautiful day today. It's almost bearable to
live in Seattle today. Almost. I had to go to the store today in
the afternoon, and I brought my friend Dan with me. He was doing me a
favor by going to the store with me.
The day was nice enough for us to contemplate driving to the store with the
top down on my car, which we did. We
rolled all the windows down, including the rear window. The drive was
short, less than a mile, in fact, but it was still fun. We went to the
store and got what I came for.
This was when Dan noticed the mileage on my car. It was 66665 miles.
No Joke. He insisted that I needed to take a picture of
the mileage at 66666. I wasn't sure what the point of it was. I mean, for
me being agnostic means that I don't really put too much weight on either
of the two poles of "good" and "evil". He suggested that I drive back
slowly, which won't affect the mileage if it's the same distance.
Carefully? Nope, that neither. I happen to know that the
distance was approximately a mile, so I wasn't particularly worried. Still,
I figured I would humor him.
There you go Dan, here's that picture.
I had plans with Pam tonight. It seems as though each week I run later and
later. She doesn't seem to mind so much, but I'm just afraid that this
will eventually shift into midnight or so and we won't be able to do much
together other than go to a bar and have drinks.
This wasn't the case, at least not this week. I must've arrived at 8:30pm or so and we decided to have dinner right here in Queen Anne Hill. It's not so bad really. Having to drive around for parking is not quite as painful as I seem to remember, but then again, that's not saying much, since I find the idea detestable. I was able to find parking about a block and a half from her place, which I considered to be generally a good thing. I suppose that Seattle has its residents well-trained. Finding parking at all is a good thing, followed by paid parking, free parking ranks high above the first two, with close (within a couple of blocks) parking being the holy grail of parking. I parked relatively close; I wasn't going to complain much.
Pam had a rough day at work and wanted to get a couple of drinks.
We decided to go to Tup Tim Thai which is within walking distance from her place. We had been there a number of times before. It is a homey place. Half of the wait staff seem very young, possibly teenagers, who are doing their part of the family business. Still, the food is very good and reasonably priced. To her dismay, we sat across from each other. It was a small table with two seats, there wasn't much we could do about that. She seemed to be feeling a bit better.
We had a couple of appetizers before dinner. One was this strange, but very good, stuffed chicken wing; the other were the spring rolls. I went through some detail explaining the game Len and I go through with springrolls to Pam. She seemed amused.
We talked about a number of things, one of which was Len's leaving for a while. He had some complications with his place and decided to pack up his stuff and go for a road trip. No Joke! Pam is worried that somehow I won't be able to cope. Len is a dear friend of mine and we spend a lot of time together. I'll certainly miss him (particularly on Sundays), but I'm happy that he's able to go off on a road trip and do the things he wants to do. Getting kicked out of his apartment non-withstanding. Besides, he'll only be gone for a few months. I'll be fine… really.
Dinner was good, the way it always is here. It was running pretty late, but we weren't the only customers here. Still we didn't linger longer than usual.
We ended up walking down the street to the Larry's Market. On the way there, Pam noticed that it was a full moon. It really was quite noteworthy (see picture above). I took this picture right off Mercer. It includes both the full moon and the Space Needle. The moon lingered there almost watching over us, not so much protectively, but more intrusive… invading our privacy. Okay, maybe not.
We ended up going to Bartell drugs first. I had to get a greeting card for tomorrow. It was Lucas's graduation party and I had to get him a card. I had already made plans to get him a particular present, but that was going to take a bit of time. Still, I wanted to get him a card. Pam and I looked at cards for what seemed like too long. I had picked the card pretty quickly, yet she stayed to continue reading greeting cards. Not that I mind really. I did also pick up a set of Pikachu dog tags for Lucas. No joke! Since obviously every graduating senior needs Pokémon dog tags.
We finally did make it into Larry's Market. We roamed around for a bit. I offered to get some champagne, but she declined. She seemed to be feeling considerably better from the entire mess at work. The idea was to get snacks. Pam picked out three items, cheese popcorn, Softbatch™ chocolate chip cookies, and Oreo cookies (naturally…). Terrific! My girlfriend has a chocolate fetish.
We walked back to her place shortly
after. The night was not as chilly as it normally aspires to be. The moon
still hovered in the night sky overlooking the two of us as we walked down
Mercer. Once we got back to her place, she gave me my birthday present,
which technically isn't until Monday.
It's a photomosaic of Mickey Mouse. The individual pictures that make up the whole are a collection of scenes from different Disney films. If you're not familiar with photomosaics they're a little tough to describe. They're composed of a collection of pictures and/or photographs, but are arranged in a way that it makes a larger coherent picture (see left…). The effect is quite stunning. I've often wondered how they're put together and have even discussed with Len reasonable guesses on how that is done mathematically. We're both scientists you know…
It was a thoughtful and darling birthday present from my dear girlfriend. I knew from the packaging that she had gotten it from the Disney Store and the only one that was reasonably close to where she lived and/or worked was the one in Westlake Center. Which is several blocks from where she works. I suppose that was the most endearing part of all, that she not only picked this out for me, but also walked a number of blocks carrying an awkward framed picture for my birthday.
Thanks, Honey!
June 16, 2000